Why trust Aging in Place
We’ve spent more than 3,000 hours conducting in-depth research on medical alert systems. Here’s what we’ve done so far:
- Put each system through our rigorous hands-on testing process in our in-house testing lab
- Took the systems on the go, wearing them to parks, stores, and friends’ homes
- Interviewed and consulted with licensed professional caregivers and gerontologists
- Mystery shopped 15 medical alert system brands
- Surveyed medical alert system users
- Hosted focus groups with medical alert system users
Read more about our medical alert systems review methodology.
Pros and cons of Life Alert medical alert systems
Pros
- 24/7 concierge services: Life Alert advertises that they offer assistance beyond emergencies, such as scheduling service calls, connecting with medical professionals, and help during extreme weather.
- No charging required for mobile devices: The system’s battery lasts seven to 10 years without needing a charge.
- Shower button with built-in speaker: The shower button includes a built-in speaker for direct communication with emergency services.
Cons
- Can’t buy online: Life Alert must be purchased over the phone, leading to aggressive upselling and less transparent pricing.
- Zero product information transparency: If you want to know basic information about the devices, you need to request a brochure to be delivered by mail. In this day and age, that’s an outrageous way to gatekeep information from customers.
- Pushy sales tactics: Some customer service representatives we spoke to were overly aggressive in trying to upsell us.
- Nearly impossible cancellation policies: Cancellation is typically only possible under specific conditions, like death or moving to a care facility, making it tough to opt out. When trying to order a device to test, a customer service rep advised us not to sign the service contract, saying we’d never be able to cancel it. No fall detection: Life Alert does not offer automatic fall detection, one of the most common reasons people purchase a medical alert system in the first place.
Alternative medical alert systems we do recommend
Our experience with Life Alert
We’ve tested just about every medical alert system on the market—but we thought testing Life Alert would be a waste of our time. First of all, a customer service representative said it would be almost impossible to cancel our service contract after testing since the main reasons they allow for cancellation are death or the move to a care facility. Even in those situations, we heard about users who still couldn’t get their loved one’s contract canceled.
Plus, our preliminary research quickly showed that Life Alert was expensive, outdated, and restrictive compared to dozens of affordable no-contract systems. When it comes to pricing, the premium three-year contract would cost a user $3,600—an almost unheard of price in the industry.
Still, to give you a thorough review, we went undercover to shop the brand like a real customer to share the experience. Unfortunately, the brand lived up to our negative expectations. Life Alert representatives were rude and pushy when we asked questions, and they immediately wanted us to share personal and financial information.
In the end, we found a few things to like about Life Alert, but the cons far outweighed the pros in our expert opinion.
The benefits of Life Alert
Concierge services for non-emergencies
The Life Alert button can be pressed any time the person needs help, whether it’s a life-threatening emergency or a request for information.
Examples of tasks the Life Alert team said they can do for users:
- Getting a plumber to fix a burst pipe in the middle of the night
- Calling loved ones when the phone is out of reach
- Talking to a medical doctor, pharmacist, or veterinarian
- Obtaining information about extreme weather conditions and how to take shelter
- Calling a utility company to make a service appointment or ask a question
No charging required
The Life Alert on-the-go system uses a lithium-ion battery that lasts seven to 10 years. Life Alert monitors the battery level remotely and sends a new device when the old battery gets low. This long-lasting battery means there’s no reason to take the device off for charging, which could leave a person vulnerable in an emergency.
A wall button with a speaker
Life Alert is the only medical alert company besides Aloe Care Health to sell a wall button with a built-in speaker. With other in-home systems, only the base unit has a speaker. It can be difficult to hear or be heard when this base unit is in the living room, and you’ve fallen in the bathroom with the shower running, for example. All medical alert companies will dispatch emergency services if they can’t hear you, but it’s nice to be able to communicate your needs and request the exact type of help you need.It can go anywhere in the house, but Life Alert calls it the Shower Button because the brand recommends placing it low on the shower or bathroom wall. The bedroom, stairs, and bathroom are the top three locations where people 65 and older fall in the home, so it’s smart to put a button near the floor in all of these areas just in case you or your care recipient takes off the wearable button.
Why we don’t recommend Life Alert
Have to purchase over the phone
Life Alert is the only medical alert system that must be bought over the phone. We discovered through our mystery shopping experience that Life Alert wants you to call so that a sales representative can upsell products. They pitched the most expensive package without telling us that other, more affordable options existed. If we didn’t know any better from prior research, we might have easily thought everyone pays $98.85 per month for Life Alert.
Almost impossible to get accurate information about Life Alert
The phone number on LifeAlert.com didn’t work. There’s also a Life Alert app that seems to be designed as another sales tactic with a different phone number, which also didn’t work. When we finally got in touch with customer service (by searching the company online) to ask for more information, they told us we could request a brochure to be mailed to our house.
This only led to more confusion when we realized the brochure had totally different information on things like device range than was provided on the website and in the actual product manual.
The only way to learn about prices and contract terms is to call the Life Alert sales line, but the salespeople do not like to give straightforward answers. Two different Life Alert sales representatives said, “That’s not how we do things here,” when we asked for product pricing information and a copy of the contract.
Bad customer service
The salespeople started out friendly, but once we started to ask about seeing a contract, expressed reluctance to complete the sale, or declined to give out private information, like our full name, address, and date of birth, the tone of the conversation shifted.
Here are the most shocking things we experienced on the phone with Life Alert representatives:
- When asked about lower prices, one rep asked our tester if she cared more about money than about her mother.
- Another rep suggested that if we didn’t make the purchase on that phone call, something bad could happen, and we would regret our decision.
- We said we wanted to consult with a family member before making the purchase and were told they would “fall in line” if we just went ahead and paid for a system.
- One rep continuously tried to discourage us from doing basic research.
- Reps also made numerous false claims about the devices and their capabilities that we could easily fact-check online.
Can’t see the contract before sharing payment information
Life Alert refuses to send contracts to potential customers unless they provide credit card details. And even if you don’t end up signing, lawyers we consulted said there’s a chance that the company could still charge our card if we started using the system or waited long enough with the contract in hand.
A class action lawsuit was filed in California against Life Alert Emergency Response, Inc. in 2021 for such scenarios, alleging that the company uses illegal “negative option” marketing tactics to get a person’s credit card information before they can read a contract and charges the card until the person tells the company to stop and returns the equipment. The lawsuit has yet to be resolved.
It’s almost impossible to cancel Life Alert
Based on what sales representatives have told us and what we’ve read in online reviews, Life Alert only allows customers to cancel the service under three conditions:
- Death of the user: A death certificate must be sent to Life Alert.
- User moves into a care facility: Documentation must be sent to Life Alert from “an accredited health or social service organization.”
- User receives 24/7 skilled in-home care: Documentation must be sent to Life Alert from “an accredited health or social service organization.”
No other medical alert systems do this. In fact, Medical Guardian and MobileHelp, among others, provide prorated refunds, ensuring you don’t pay any more than you have to.
No fall detection
We asked the Life Alert sales representative why they don’t offer fall detection devices, and they claimed they find it inaccurate. Fall detection technology has come a long way in the last 20 years. While no device is guaranteed to detect every single fall, we know there are several devices on the market with excellent success rates because we’ve tested them.
No GPS location tracking for care partners
Many medical alert systems pair with a smartphone app that allows authorized users to see the device’s location. This is a simple and convenient way to see where someone is. Life Alert only shares the device’s location with the monitoring center when the button is pushed. This saves battery life by reducing the amount of communication that occurs between the device and GPS satellites, but it limits the ways the device can be used every day and in emergency situations.
Way more expensive than the competition
Unless you think you’d use the non-emergency concierge service all the time—and we haven’t tested how effective that service is—there’s little reason to choose Life Alert over a competitor like Medical Guardian, MobileHelp, or Bay Alarm Medical. You get far more value for your money with these brands compared to Life Alert thanks to more functional equipment, more device options, greater buying flexibility, and the freedom to cancel at any time.
Features of Life Alert
Standard features
- Three-year contract with price lock
- Lifetime warranty
- Button batteries last six to 10 years
- 72-hour backup battery in base unit
- Waterproof help buttons
Optional features
- Cellular vs. landline base station
- Upgraded package with shower button
- Upgraded package with shower button and mobile system
Life Alert cost
Life Alert prices start at $49.95 per month for a basic in-home system. Adding a shower button increases the price to $79.95. Adding a mobile device brings the monthly total to $98.85.
Life Alert doesn’t charge equipment fees but charges a one-time fee of $197. The company calls this the “installation fee” even though you install the system yourself with phone support.
Life Alert could also charge a $100 lost equipment fee if you fail to return the devices after canceling. We were unable to confirm the monthly cost of add-on equipment, like an extra pendant or shower button.
